Mamapumpkin??? 
Once upon a time, she designed buildings and interiors of corporate offices and on the rare occasion, homes. Now, she cleans poop and is student of a patience management course. From the drawing board as a London Architect to the realities of Motherhood, she has certainly learned many lessons in humility. And then others.....
To succeed in the corporate world, first succeed with your kid as the happy boss. Seriously.
This blog is about Mamapumpkin: A crazy, kick-ass Mom who works full time juggling several jobs - the full-time paid job, the raising of her 2 kids (she gets paid in kind for this) and the volunteering job for various charity organisations and parenting websites. Needless to say, she gets very little sleep (3-5 hours per day, Margaret Thatcher who used to sleep 4 hours per day during her conservative career inspires this crazy lifestyle).
Mamapumpkin intends to change the working Mom landscape in Malaysia where working women can bring their children to the corporate office of a client and not be frowned upon.
She writes anything that comes out of her head, mostly without thinking first (since she already has to think at work!), which almost ALWAYS gets her into trouble (according to her husband, whom she considers the love of her life on a good day).
Her 2 pet monkeys drive her towards challenge after challenge, 24/7.....day after day.....and interestingly, her parents are Muslim, her in-laws Buddhist, she's Catholic and her Hubs, an Atheist. She's thinking her kids should be Hindu, just to complete the rainbow religion cycle.
Gotta love it.
She'd love to hear from you : Mamapumpkin at gmail dot com
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By Mamapumpkin, on January 28th, 2012
CNY for us in KB is an extremely simple and tight affair. On the eve of CNY, we had sea cucumber, abalone and brocolli mushrooms…….
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Crab cutlets……….
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Steamed Fish…….
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Abalone and God only knows what else Soup……..
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Amah’s famous Pumpkin Soup for my Pumpkins who never fail to request for this…….
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And the MUST HAVE: Kelantan Sambal Belacan……..
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There were 1-2 dishes more but I can’t remember what now! I’ve told you – my memory is rubbish!
On CNY Day itself, the girls ran down in their PJs to wish their grandparents and T2, who refused to say hello to her Kong-Kong since we got there (she’s just a baby snob!), managed to give Kong-Kong a kiss that morning in return for her fat (literally) ang pow. We gave Kong-Kong an ang pow too but he was so sweet and gave it back to the girls and told them to share it between them. Bless.
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Then whilst waiting for the rest of us to get dressed, they played with Amah…..
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Later, we had some guests and my girls pretended to be disc jockeys. They gathered some of Amah’s stainless steel and melamine plates from the kitchen and started spinning their records. Too funny…..T1 MUST have watched this on TV and then taught the youngsters to do it. Oh! She went to a Petrosains Music Exhibition once – maybe that’s where it’s from. I remember a DJ console there that they could play with.
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We visited Amah’s old timber kampung house by the river and did some prayers to the ancestors……..
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We’d gone in 2 cars – Amah with the other family and Kong-Kong with ours and on the way home, Kong-Kong suddenly made a detour and treated us to McDonald’s ice-cream!!! The other gang went straight home and worried where the heck we were! Kota Bharu kampung – nobody uses handphones…….
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That evening, the Hubs and his Mom sat down in the garden to talk finances. His mom couldn’t understand some bank statement and the Hubs had to explain.
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Whilst I brought the girls upstairs to play in the balcony…….for a change.
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Which is when I saw this! Just behind Kong-Kong’s house, a major commercial construction project was under way right in the centre of town. A year ago, the oldies were complaining that they’d received notice that construction was going to happen behind them and they quickly renovated the house to do some damage control. What used to be just green trees behind will soon be some high rise condominium. CRAP. And when excavation works began, lots of snakes were coming out!!! OMG!!!!
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Later, the Hubs joined the girls upstairs…..what is T1 doing there peeking inside the room?
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The next day, we had Amah’s fantastic Laksam Kelantan…….
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Special laksa noodles with minced fish broth/curry, topped with fresh crunchy, crisp vegetables (long beans, bean sprouts, daun kesum, shredded cucumber, mint leaves plus 3 other vegetable/herb type greens that I have no clue about), completed with sambal belacan and a pinch of salt.
HEAVEN.
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Coming from Kelantanese roots, my girls were forced to eat a milder version of the Laksam……T1 opted for NO VEGETABLES and VERY LITTLE curry sauce……
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T2 had it almost plain…….
They need more training with Kelantanese food, quite clearly.
By Mamapumpkin, on January 27th, 2012
One of the really FUN things my girls did in Kota Bharu was floor graffiti! Street Art! They both LOVE doodling…….so Kong-Kong’s vast concrete driveway became the perfect canvas for T1 to show off her fun as she knew we were expecting guests for CNY.
She spent a whole morning getting the road prepared to welcome our guests.
Not forgetting her times tables that we’ve been drilling her to learn up because she needs to know it by now. If she were in Chinese School, she would have mastered it by now (am I right?) but my dearest T1, is so averse to her multiplication tables that she has a mental block when it comes to it. Last year, she only needed to know up to her 6 times tables but this year, she needs to know it all up to 12. We’re getting there………
It’s amazing how she could just draw and draw and draw…………
Part of the final result……..
T2 had tons of fun jumping over her sister’s masterpiece.
Jump-Jump-Jump…………
Eventually, a hop scotch box was incorporated. Super fun day.
By Mamapumpkin, on January 26th, 2012
T2 was a natural when it came to motor skills – both gross and fine. Very early on, she could climb playground slides and held a pencil perfectly from the start. Her speech was slightly delayed comparatively to T1 as T1 started speaking in sentences at 16 months whilst T2 really only started speaking in sentences recently at 28 months. Different kids, different developmental paces but they all catch up eventually. If you’re interested in further developing fine motor skills of a toddler though, you should get some toho beads and with close supervision, get them to thread them into beautiful necklaces or bracelets for Mama…….
By Mamapumpkin, on January 26th, 2012
Whenever we go back to Kota Bharu, it’s R&R time for everyone. We don’t bring any toys, no ipads, not even books as if anyone wanted to read, Amah’s book case has tons of English classics from the Hubs childhood. So how do the kids entertain themselves everyday without toys nor TV? They don’t watch an ounce of TV because Kong-Kong is the keeper of the remote control and because he only watches Mandarin channels, the kids aren’t interested.
Over just TWO days………..this is what they did:
They played with Amah’s old empty card board boxes of all shapes and sizes. Here, they are on a bus on the way to their new home. They pretended that they were moving house…..
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Here, they were packing the boxes in preparation for the big move.
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They performed for their grandparents…….T1′s concert moves singing Colbie Callait’s I Do.
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Then, T2 sang another song…..my girls, they just LOVE the limelight!!!
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They both had a hair cut in the garden……
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LOL – What’s with the frown, T2? Hair Stylist not good enough for you??? *hands clenched below*
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Ohhhh…..she’s taking time away from your play time…….I get it. *hands folded*
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T1 flew real kites………..and T2 flew her own home-made paper kite.
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We rode bicycles…..even me! Kong-Kong repaired the Hubs old bicycle (can you imagine!!!) so we three got to ride up and down the drive-way. WAY FUNNNNNN!!!! But guess what? The next day, the big bike no longer worked. It took us awhile to figure it out but it turned out I was too heavy for the bike and the metal frame that went over the back wheel got dented and bent out of shape so that caused friction with the back tyre. THAT’s why it no longer worked. How embarrassing!!! Kong-Kong said he’ll have to take it back to the shop and see if they can bang it back into shape. Aiyo!!!
They’re keeping it because it was a bicycle from England!! I’d just throw it out……but there are lessons here to be learnt. What an amazing thing to be able to say I’m riding my dad’s old bicycle or driving my dad’s old car…..just imagine the history that has gone behind them. Antique gems, yo!
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The girls spent late nights chatting to their grandmother.
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And made their grandfather do physical work playing horse-y!!! Poor old Kong-Kong with the big 27 kilo passenger!!!
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T2 learnt how to share her precious champagne grapes with her baby cousin.
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Whilst T1′s daily task was to fold all the cloth nappies for her baby cousin.
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The girls tried skinny dipping!!! (because Mama forgot to pack their swimmies). So everyone decided oh, what the heck! They stripped and were more than happy to jump in…….T1 took awhile though. She was the slow teaser…..going in first with her shorts, then slowly removing piece by piece when she found it too inconvenient to move around in water with baggy wet clothes.
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They relaxed……………
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They had fun………………
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And because they were naked, T2 had a surprise for us. Because she was sooooooooo relaxed and having so much fun, her poo came out naturally……..into the pool, unlike our usual day long constipated grief! You really should have been there to hear the screams that came when we finally lifted T2 out of the pool to go for a shower only to discover the chocolate ‘poo’ balls under her bum!
GOOD TIMES!!!
By Mamapumpkin, on January 25th, 2012
I cannot stress how MUCH food there is to eat in my in-laws house in Kota Bharu and really, the fact that it’s Chinese New Year, the gate has not stopped opening and closing since we got here because people keep delivering goodies and more goodies and yet again, more goodies; it’s enough to make me feel like this fat lady, even if I don’t eat them all!
What more, because we are in Kelantan, the food itself from Kelantan just by walking out my in-laws door (and we don’t even have to because Mom-in-law can cook it all really, really well!), is to die for. There is Nasi Kerabu, Nasi Dagang, Ayam Percik, Pulut Bakar, Satay Kelantan, Laksam Kelanteh, you name it.
We have the entire array of Chinese New Year goodies, love letters, kuih bakul, kuih bahulu, pineapple jam tarts, cornflake cookies, coconut cookies, peanut cookies, goodness, so many cookies I don’t even know their names!
But my favourites out of the crop are in no particular order:-
Amah’s fabulous melt-in-your-mouth chocolate cake. It has an almond flavour to it and very chocolaty, but best of all, very, very moist.
Amah’s fruit muffins – baked specially for my constipated toddler but this time round, she’s not too keen. She ate a lot of this in Chiangmai but now, she’s tired of it. They’re made of minced mango, dates, raisins, banana, prunes, oranges and any other fruit that lurks in the kitchen. Plus walnuts!
Amah’s legendary apple pie – this is no ordinary apple pie. It’s almost like an apple sandwich, apple fruit sandwiched between two layers of melt in your mouth pastry that’s topped with crunchy cornflakes and a layer of frosting. Mmmm……..Mmmm………….
I have never been a fan of layered cake all my life until I tried this. Amah bought this in Kota Bharu and they are SO flavourful, I could nibble on them all day!
This one’s even better! It sure looks like a lot of work and I hate to say this but I could eat this forever too. There must be something to it that makes it so good!
And after all those goodies placed in front of me day-in and day-out, I am grateful that Amah has a big garden that allows me to run back and forth within safe grounds. I measured today that from the front gate to the back of the house measures 75m, so 2 laps back and forth makes 150m. I ran 12 laps back and forth in 30 minutes. I’ll do another 30 minutes later as I did my first run in the scorching sun at 10am and got tired/dehydrated fast. Mind you, I feel my face burning now. Crap.
Unfortunately, I come from a family where being fat is unacceptable and even though it’s not like I’m eating so much, my hormones are causing some imbalance where fat cells are concerned. But people don’t understand. They think I’m just a pig who cannot control food. C’est la vie.
Whilst I run in private (because if I ran with people watching, they’d all be making fun of me!), my girls play quietly with their babysitter.
Do you think I can run every day whilst here??? There is really not much else to do.
By Mamapumpkin, on January 24th, 2012
After dinner, we went to the lounge where the New Year’s Eve Party was being held. I told T1 that those balloons up there were all going to fall at the strike of midnight and she kept asking what time it was all night. Mannnn………….
And because of that, I had a splitting headache which got quickly cured with a cocktail – a mix with whisky and rum! Oh yeah! It worked like magic! Can you believe this woman is my Mom??? Do you see any resemblance at all? I swear, she’s lying to me and must’ve picked me up from somewhere!!!
And then midnight came, and the balloons really fell………
We quickly ran out of the hotel to observe the fireworks……..
Boom-Boom-Boom!!! T2 wasn’t impressed with the booms. She will one day.
And then we ran up to our room to watch more fireworks! The curry house downstairs were having their own fireworks on the street – how cool!
And then we ran back to the lounge for DANCING!!!
T1 spent a whole good hour dancing and did. not. want. to. go. to. bed.
She learnt the YMCA dance moves from her cousins.
She learnt the Macarena dance moves from her cousins, and man, one of her cousins could really dance!
Everyone was happy dancing.
And THAT concluded our New Year’s Eve. The best part was the coming together of family, all 20 of us, all the way from Australia. We are so blessed to have that – FAMILY. Real family, people who would cross the worlds for you at the drop of a hat without question. Now how many people have that?
In this day and age, many families are filled with distrust, jealousy and envy, hidden agendas and backbiting. It’s too tiring. And the moment any of our family members (we have a very big extended family, more than a hundred I reckon) become like that, we run…………..
My Mom has cancer. We have no time for any negativity. Not a single drop. Our resolve has been a good one. We only hang out with good people. It’s so simple. Try it.
By Mamapumpkin, on January 23rd, 2012
Our New Year Celebrations are always different each year. It all depends on which way the wind blows and what we feel like doing that year. Some years, we keep with within the family, just the four of us. Some years, we spend it with Nana and Tok-Tok and Uncle Ben etc. and then some years, we have the whole extended family celebrating with us like last year. Because we’d just returned from a 20 man trip to Chiangmai, it was only natural that we heralded the new year in together with this 20 man gang!
We booked ourselves into the hotel at which they were staying and planned to party the night away at the Hotel. I had initially suggested we go for a karaoke party but nobody was interested and instead, all I got were death glares. So OK, at least the girls will have fun in a hotel. They always do.
This was my New Year Eve’s outift – all ready for some par-tay-ing! Darn, I didn’t get the heels in…..
At 6pm, we went downstairs for dinner with the gang. It was a plus-plus-plus dinner cost that evening as it was a New Year’s Eve dinner – blek! But the girls still had fun.
My two girls……what does 2012 have in store for you, I wonder.
My two blessed girls………growing up beneath my eyes.
It was an awesome New Year’s Eve celebration that we had. It was beyond awesome.
Happy New Year to one and all!!! May you be blessed with all that you wish for and have the best days of your lives!!! I’m not too late, right??? It’s still JANUARY!!!
“Happy New Year!” *in squeaky mouse voice*
By Mamapumpkin, on January 21st, 2012
Our lives are full of adventure. The night before we left for Kota Bharu (thursday night), we had a great dinner with Tok-Tok, Nana and the rest of the family till about 10pm then went home to pack. Why pack so last minute? Because I hadn’t had a single free moment all week to pack, that’s why. I kid you not. The Hubs was major pissed that I was dissing my responsibilities but man, he doesn’t have a clue what it’s like to hold 5 jobs all at once.
The kids were tired and so were we but pack we had to and yet we had to put the kids to bed. We couldn’t decide which to do first because putting the kids to bed would take at least an hour and unfortunately, I had to be involved in both tasks!!! Wouldn’t it be simple, if the Hubs and I could just split the chores and each do one? No, because he wouldn’t know what to pack and the kids don’t want him to put them to bed. *big sigh*
Mind you, I had a work deadline. I’d promised my boss that I’d send him some work by the evening but by the time I packed AND put the kids to sleep, all I wanted to do was crash. CRASH. Like just fall deep into my mattress. As much as I mustered up the will to get up and work, my eyelids were shut tight. So I smsed my boss to ask if I could get the work to him the next evening instead and of course, he said yes. And because he is the best boss one could ever have, EVER……..I got second wind and got out of bed to complete the work which saw me finally seeing black at 230am.
At exactly 4am, T1 woke up coughing and then vomited on the bed. Lalalalala…….was this another pre-holiday excitement challenge? Clean sheets and middle of the night stress later, T2 woke up asking for milk at 6am. Instead of getting everyone out of bed, I accidentally fell back to sleep and by the time we all woke up, it was 730am. Still so much to do…….all that last minute packing. Rush-rush-rush, get the kids dressed and out of the way, we forgot to book a taxi. Our flight was at 10.50am. We needed to be at KLIA by 945am latest. With our bad ass luck, we called for a cab from 8am for about 30 minutes but it was raining and there was no taxi. I think nobody wanted to take us to KL Sentral as it was so close to home! Yet, we didn’t think taking a cab straight to KLIA would have cut it because it was Friday and the traffic was very bad. The Hubs and I were both ding-dong-ing about what to do and I must say, in a crisis when the kids are still jabbering on about this that and the other, I have more calm and finally made the decision to drive ourselves to KL Sentral to zoom to KLIA with the train instead. Never mind what parking at KL Sentral cost for a week – RM40 per day, I think. ERL tickets cost RM85 one-way. So instead of potentially paying RM200 for the return KLIA trip, we are now going to pay something like RM500 for our KLIA return journey.
All this time, we were fighting against time…..it was peak hour morning traffic on a rainy Friday. When we finally got to KL Sentral, we took awhile to find parking so finally the hubs asked me to go down with the kids to check-in everything and he’d meet me at the train gates. I rushed down with the kids and told them we were in the Amazing Race as per Aunty PL’s definition and they had a ball of a time not realising the severity of the problem. When we got to the check-in counter, I was made to purchase the ERL tickets first before being allowed to check-in. WTF! By the time I buy the tickets, the check-in counters would be closed!!!
I prayed and prayed and flung out the inhalers, then quickly paid for the ERL tickets and RAN to the check-in counter with my kids. They needed my husband’s IC in order to check him in and they needed all our IC’s. WTF again! I usually don’t carry the kids MyKid Cards with me but it just so happened I did this time. Phew. Got our boarding passes and then phoned the Hubs who was still looking for parking. It’s great, isn’t it? World class facility but yet why do I still feel so inconvenienced?
When he finally came down, what felt like ages, we got him checked in and zoomed to the trains downstairs. And the train was delayed. We finally got onto the train at 950am and arrived at the airport just in time to board the plane at 1040am. See my monkeys’ faces? So cool and calm, right? You should have seen OUR faces.
Last ones onto the plane…….
I swear to God, I’m too old for this kind of excitement even if the kids loved it. It’s like going on a roller coaster – just way too old for such things.
The silver lining in this though was that on the way to the airport, whilst the Hubs and I were still majorly stressed as we didn’t know if we were going to make it and what more, he’d lost his boarding pass from KL Sentral, T1 observed the beautiful sun rays that fell from the sky. She pointed and said, “Isn’t that just beautiful??? The whole sky is clouded up and there is a hole within the clouds where the sun is shining it’s rays down…..”
Let there be light. Gratitude. Check. My girl appreciates real beauty. We have the eyes to be able to appreciate such beauty. Thank you. I was sure then that we would make that plane and we did.
Bless……..
As soon as we arrived, the girls ran out of the baggage place to greet their grandfather and T1 happily told him about our amazing race adventure, and as soon as we parked the car in Kong-Kong’s house, they ran to the garden to hop onto their respective bicycles after saying hello to everybody. Like caged monkeys let loose into the jungle……….
T2 didn’t even want to remove her jeans before she played. They are so deprived of the outdoors, my girls.
T1 getting spoilt and ‘manja-ed’ by her Kong-Kong. Kong-Kong’s big baby!
And here, our wonderful welcome lunch. Nasi Kerabu, with shredded kembung fish and 10 different vegetables (including mint leaves, daun kesum, bean sprouts, lemon grass, and who knows what else) all minced into green rice; topped up with Bubu (I don’t know what that is, fish sauce something?) and sambal belachan. Spicy crunchy Heaven.
Dinner was Assam Fish which I don’t have a photo of because it came out last so we could have it hot and some sausage lobak thing, steamed asparagus, some prawn/pork vegetable soupy dish and deep fried tofu prawn with chillies.
I don’t know why Ama keeps steaming asparagus for the girls. They never eat them!!! She also cooked separately for the girls, they had minced pork and rice with whatever else they wanted on the table. They wanted keropok -__-
This vegetable dish below was very fragrant. The choy sum vegetables came straight from the garden and it was cooked with mushrooms, garlic, pork, prawns and wine. Superbly delicious.
Deep fried tofu prawns dipped in vinegarette chilli sauce. Yumz.
The evening saw T1 and T2 playing – what else do they do??? And myself working – what else do I do???
But we’re loving it in Kota Bharu……
By Mamapumpkin, on January 20th, 2012
OK, I’m a simple girl and although I’ve read of macarons in story books, I’d never actually tasted one before. Not even when I lived in London and visited Paris. So when macarons started getting trendy in KL, awareness got the better of me and I finally tried some. Uncle Ben when he went dating with some pretty lass, bought some macarons from The Mandarin Oriental in Chiangmai. He bought them for his nieces but I ate them all. Why? Because they had no interest and to be honest, I didn’t see what the big deal was at all.
Later, I’d tried some from several other places at random and still didn’t see what the big deal was. Finally, I bought a box from Ginza Cafe at Tokyo Street for a ridiculous price of, oh, I don’t know what, but they were shockingly expensive to me! RM4 per piece maybe? I bought RM50 worth. And guess what? It was the end of my macaron testing. I do not like macarons. Period. And neither do my kids.
We must just have cheap taste buds…….heh.
By Mamapumpkin, on January 17th, 2012
Now THIS, is the epitome of a true birthday celebration. Not some big fancy-schmancy party with lots of people whom half the time you don’t even know are your friends or not. Actually, why do people do that?
Anyway, for T1′s birthday last year, we invited ONE real friend, a little boy who was born on the exact same date as T1, in the same hospital. I hope they will stay in touch forever.
I cooked ‘kai-fan’…….
The spread – very simple because no maid!
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Another of T1′s favourite dish – Assam Prawns!!!
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The chicken close-up. The only thing I couldn’t do was chop the chicken like the real ‘kai-fan’ man at the coffee shop, so simply bang-bang-bang la with the chopping knife.
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Iceberg Lettuce, easiest vegetable to go with chicken rice.
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Chicken ham-choy tofu soup.
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Happy Birthday!!! The boy’s family were behind the camera. It was a lovely, lovely evening. We were all dressed simply and relaxed.
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Family pic for the road with me in my in the kitchen all afternoon look. I come from a family of aliens, didn’t you know? A big thank you to the person who took this photo!
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My big seven year old girl who will always be my baby. Always.
This year, she’ll be eight. I have another 8 months to hang on to her being seven………..
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